lOve It may actually be a terrible movie, but it has a message that is hard not to put into practice this Christmas. Keir Starmer, the real, non-fictional Prime Minister of Great Britain, needs to play the role of Hugh Grant – and confront the absurd US President. is now threatening the BBC with a $10 billion lawsuit.
Imagine for a moment that Starmer decided to make Donald Trump's lawsuit against the BBC the last straw for a special relationship that is only becoming more special in a bad way. This is not strange, since Trump not only took aim at the British television network, but earlier this week it seemed that he was the promise of an AI “prosperity deal” (bought, let's not forget, along with invitations to Windsor Castle) will soon evaporate. As the fictional Prime Minister of Love Actually once said, “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend… Since bullies only respond to force, from now on I will be ready to become much stronger.”
Others see it for what it is. Starmer's health secretary Stephen Kinnock, as well as rivals such as Ed Davey, are already among those calling on him to take a stand. But deep down they must know that here in the real world, there is a chance that Starmer will call Trump an abusive narcissist who is using legal action and threats at a time when the BBC is already under enormous pressure and the charter is now due to be revised – and all this in order to distract attention from his own shortcomings, this is less likely to happen than the nomination of Hugh Grant for the presidency.
So the question now remains to be asked how the BBC is going to deal with this highly inappropriate matter. So far, his instincts are sound: he declares that he will fight, and first of all – on various legal and factual grounds – will seek dismissal of the casebefore the ominous spending spiral.
And that must be right, since anyone who questions the propriety or otherwise of this should first remember that this is the President of the United States suing a news organization paid for by all British citizens over errors made in a 12-second spot that is not actually available in Florida, where he chose to file his 33-page complaint.
It is difficult to even understand what the jurisdictional basis of the claim is, given the fact that the BBC has no right to show or distribute its content in the US. Trump's lawsuit may try to exploit the show's ability to be shown on a video-on-demand streaming service. BritBoxalthough experts have already almost destroyed this line of argument. Lawyers are likely to spend a lucrative day arguing over whether Floridians will need a VPN to do this.
Trump also stated that the BBC had caused “huge reputational damage” as well as “huge reputational and financial damage” with its controversial documentary. However, he won the US election a week after Panorama was first broadcast, and his share of the vote in Florida increased.
What's even stranger is that his speech may have been poorly edited by BBC editors, but the fact remains: US grand jury indicts Trump on four charges related to his conduct during the attack on the Capitol, the subject of the Panorama program. Even the lawsuit cannot claim that he never said the words in the video, but simply “that sequence of words.”
Most normal politicians would not want to remind anyone of this episode, but Trump, of course, is not a normal politician. His frequent wild remarks include, most recently, suggesting that acclaimed director Rob Reiner was jumping the gun. his own death with his criticism of Trump — may not do anything to improve the lives of ordinary Americans, but they simultaneously entertain them and distract the media, wallowing in the flow of online sludge.
It's a lose-lose situation for the BBC. How Christopher Ruddychief executive of the pro-Trump US network Newsmax, said on the Today program that fighting the case would likely cost between $50 million and $100 million, not least because of the discovery burden caused by Trump's lawyers demanding access to every email that mentions him in an attempt to detect bias. Offering a figure of around $10 million, Ruddy called on the BBC to pay compensation, as many US news organizations, including ABC and CBS News, have already done in response to this year's threat. But how can the BBC solve this problem if the matter is, by most reasonable standards, absurd?
This first reality TV president seems determined to turn the world into an absurd farce. But the reality is tragic for those who depend on fearless, independent news organizations to try to hold the most powerful people accountable. It doesn't have to make sense; it just has to become news and cause damage. On this basis, the president already has everything he wants.
